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David Crummy helps secure a large container boat at the N.C. State Port at Wilmington while working with the International Longshoreman’s Association in February 00.
Buy Photo Photo by Paul Stephen
David Crummy, a legendary drug kingpin from Wilmington whose release five years ago sparked region-wide condemnation, is back behind bars and facing a new raft of trafficking charges.
Crummy’s arrest late last week came after a coordinated raid on five dwellings around New Hanover County uncovered whopping quantities of crack cocaine, authorities said.
Sheriff’s deputies on Thursday arrested Crummy and four other people, accusing them of conspiring to funnel drugs from multiple suppliers in the Northeast to the Cape Fear region. The arrests, which marked the climax of a five-month investigation, is likely to revive old tales from when Crummy helmed a notorious drug distribution ring responsible for importing some $5 million worth of crack to Wilmington during the late 90s.
Crummy, whose organization was originally dismantled in 99 with the arrests of him, his wife, stepfather and more than 30 of his associates, was paroled in 006 after serving 6 years of a 300-year sentence.
He reportedly told authorities last week that he returned to the drug trade recently because his construction company was faltering and he figured selling crack was an easy way to make money fast, said Lt. J.A. LeBlanc, a supervisor in New Hanover County’s vice and narcotics unit.
0He was only going into it for a while, then he was going to get back out of the game, LeBlanc said, recalling Crummy’s remarks.
Crummy’s network unraveled the first time when on Nov. , 99, deputies launched an early morning raid at his trailer at 0 Rockhill Road in Castle Hayne and rounded up 40 of his alleged associates. The sweep was the result of a six-month probe targeting a conspiracy believed to have supplied some 0 percent of Wilmington’s crack cocaine in the late 90s, and its demise prompted then-Sheriff Joseph McQueen Jr. to laud it as the biggest arrest of his career.
A jury found Crummy, also known as Disco Dave, guilty in 990 after 3 of his fellow ring members pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against him, including his wife, Shebra. A judge originally sentenced Crummy, then , to 0 years thought at the time to be the state’s longest sentence in a drug case but the term was later lengthened after Crummy tried to sneak drugs into prison.
Reluctant to cooperate at first, Crummy apparently turned into an informant while incarcerated, providing information that led to convictions against five other major drug dealers. Based on that 0substantial assistance, prosecutors and law enforcement officials signed off on cutting Crummy’s sentence.
Having achieved freedom, Crummy apparently went to work at the state port in Wilmington as a longshoreman for the International Longshoremen’s Association. It was unclear when, if ever, Crummy’s employment there ended. LeBlanc said at the time of Thursday’s arrest that Crummy possessed a valid longshoremen’s ID.
Messages with the longshoremen’s association and the state ports authority were not returned Tuesday.
0I don’t know why he wanted to get back into the drug business, former Sheriff Sid Causey, who commanded the narcotics unit in the latter 90s, said after learning of Crummy’s recent arrest. 0Maybe he wasn’t making enough.
Crummy became a target of yet another sheriff’s investigation in February after investigators developed intelligence that suggested he was back to old habits. The probe culminated when authorities, including agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, conducted searches at five residences in New Hanover County, including Crummy’s listed address at 40 N. 3th St.
In one of the dwellings a two-story brick house at 6 Rockhill Road, only a stone’s throw from where Crummy was arrested in 99 agents found Crummy along with several other men in a house with more than 9 ounces of freshly cooked crack cocaine, some of it already packaged for sale, LeBlanc said.
Along with Crummy, now 49, authorities also arrested Marcus Buie, 0 Louis Tyson, 45 Louis Whitted, 54 and Desiree Tate, 3. A sixth suspect, Rodney Tyson, had not been apprehended as of Tuesday, LeBlanc said.
Brian Freskos: 343-3
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